Far Away
by hopelessromantic549
Summary: It was over; she felt it. But she held on, held on as desperately as she could. She needed him, he needed her. It was that simple. It had to be. LP, finding their way back to each other. One-shot.


**A/N: This is a one-shot I wrote quickly, having been inspired by Far Away by Nickelback, the lyrics of which I've included. It takes place when Lucas proposes to Peyton and continues forth from there. It's basically an in-depth look at/of Season 5.**

**Thanks for reading! Enjoy :)**

_So far away_

Lucas Scott opened, closed, opened his eyes. The darkness fluttering behind his eyelids was easier to cope with than the sight of Peyton Sawyer's tear-filled green eyes.

"You're saying no." His voice was strangled, weak. Broken. It surprised him, really. He had never dreamed that such moisture would glint in his eyes. Not because of her.

She had saved him, so many times. He had saved her. And now, after years of tumultuous passion, after betrayal and heartbreak and loss…after all that, she was saying no. She wouldn't marry him.

He couldn't feel his knee as he knelt beside her; the rug burned through the thin fabric of his pants, numbing him to anything but the acute pain of rejection. He had never really known what it felt like to be without love. But now, now, here in this hotel room, with his girlfriend, now, now…he knew the pain, knew the agony.

And goddamn it, he just wished it would go away.

He almost missed the words she whispered, tears lacing the harmonic notes slipping from her mouth. "I'm not saying no, Luke."

The sound of his nickname, a nickname she alone used, spurred a spasm of pain. It ripped through his heart. And for a moment, her breath mingled with his, and the tears sparkling in her kaleidoscope eyes faltered and spilled. And he sighed, because such a love as theirs shouldn't end. Not now. Not like this.

"Then what _are_ you saying?" he beseeched her angrily, pulling her towards him, pressing his lips to the curly excesses of her blond hair. He breathed in the distinct smell of her locks and whispered, his words muffled, "I want to marry you, Peyton."

He withdrew, paused. His eyes found hers, sincere, caring, passionate. And she realized that to be without him was a fate worse than death.

And so she whispered, "I know, Luke. But not now. Someday."

But he cringed. Someday was not a promise. It was a word used to ease the pain. She was saying no. She was. She was leaving him.

He was surprised it hurt so much.

Somehow, he found his voice, despite the swelling in his throat. "I'm in Tree Hill, you're in LA. This is the only way we'll ever work."

She suppressed her anger at the sound of those words, but she couldn't help herself from retorting, tears blending with rage, "So this is a last resort, you mean? The only way we'll stay together is by getting married."

He nodded, not quite understanding why that angered her. It seemed logical to him.

She only shook her head. "You don't get it," Her voice was low, and she ran a hand through her tangled curls, the blond hairs whispering past his cheek as her head swept back and forth. "If we can't survive distance, how will we survive marriage?"

He pulled himself to his feet, moving away from her, because to be that close to her when such devastating words fell from her mouth was simply too difficult for him. She was his. She had been his for so long. But not nearly long enough. And now she was slipping away, and he had no idea how to reach out and grab her.

He faltered, breathed. "Peyton…"

It was a whispered plea, and she replied, with a hint of tears hidden in her voice, "I'm afraid this conversation is going to end in…"

"Goodbye."

And she knew then that they were over. That one word ended them.

But she held on, held on as desperately as she could. She needed him, he needed her. It was that simple. It _had _to be.

"No." she whimpered. She reached out to him with one frail, soft hand, and he laced his fingers through hers, closing his eyes.

This was too hard. Too painful. Too final.

"Stay with me," she whispered.

And so he did.

But he was gone by the time she woke up, and the fragile beam of hope she had entertained suddenly faltered and lessened, until only a small dot fluttered on the edges of her consciousness. Only a small dot.

He was gone. And he would not be coming back.

She turned her head, buried her face in her pillow, and screamed.

_This time, this place  
Misused, mistakes  
Too long, too late  
Who was I to make you wait?_

He left LA in tears, moisture cascading down his cheeks as he struggled to retain some aspect of sanity. He tried to reason that he had known life without her for many years. He had fantasized about her for so long. Surely, being without her would not kill him.

Or so he thought.

The next few months were all a blur, a broken, gray blur that he neither succumbed to nor ignored. He was in limbo, in the space between sorrow and hatred, and although a part of him realized that he should be expending effort on getting her back, he couldn't. Because the thought of her was enough to send him spiraling into the endless depths of alcohol and cheap girls.

But sex itself was nothing either. It was all just nothing. He made love to another girl and saw her face, screamed her name. He talked to Brooke and only saw _her_ eyes. She was impossible to forget.

And he would walk by the Rivercourt, past her old house, past so many places they had been to together, and he would have to suppress the racking sobs that threatened to consume him.

One day, Haley, evidently sick and tired of his moping, slapped him across the face and yelled at him, "If you miss her so much, why don't you go and get her?"

He hadn't been able to answer her.

But in the aftermath of the whole disastrous thing, he had never felt more inspired. He wrote pages and pages, refined the details. He wanted her to read his novel and see that he would never love anyone but her. He _needed _her to read it.

And when she didn't come to his book signing, what was left of him slowly faded away. Because if she didn't believe in him, then nothing he did mattered.

"Your art matters. It's what got me here."

What a lie. He had said those words to her, and now she was treating him as if his novel was unimportant. She had told him he was destined for greatness.

But she hadn't come.

And so he slept with his book editor, and he fell for her, and somehow, in the recesses of his tortured mind it occurred to him that the way her skin felt under his hands could never compare to the silky flesh of _her_.

He dreamt about her, yes, dreamt about her smile and her curls and those eyes. And sometimes, when Lindsay called his name, he wondered for a moment if he could ever be satisfied with her. It seemed impossible. Because every day, the memory of that cold night in that hotel room dodged and quickened, forcing its way into his thoughts. And try as he might to ignore the images, there were some he simply could not banish.

He and she talked very little, if at all. They drifted out of touch, because, really, what did they have to say to each other? He had proposed, and he thought she had said no.

Whether she had remained a mystery, to both of them.

But as time passed, the pain eased, and the years slowed and lessened until the moments he had fought to avoid only flickered when he willed them to. But he needed to see them, needed to remember them. Without her, it was all he had left to hold on to.

Sometimes he thought that Lindsay saw it, the slight indecision in his eyes when his gaze passed over her, the grimace of pain on his face when someone so much as mentioned _her_ name.

And then one day, she came back.

_Just one chance, just one breath  
Just in case there's just one left  
'Cause you know  
You know, you know_

A few moments after he left her in that hotel room, Peyton wiped the tears from her cheeks and stood up.

And then she left, and she tried to get over him.

She came to his book signing, because she was so proud of him and she needed to tell him that she had always known he would get his book published. She came, because she needed to see him, needed to hold him close to her and tell him that she had never stopped caring about him. She just needed to talk to him.

She could still smell the lingering scent of mint and raspberry, could still feel the rough touch of cropped locks. She could still taste his lips on her tongue. Sometimes, she thought she could still see his eyes. _Those_ eyes, the eyes that delved deeper and deeper into her until she worried there was nothing left for him to find.

She could still feel him, all around her.

But when she arrived at the bookstore, headband nestled in her hair, smile tentatively set on her face, she saw him, and the fault line in her chest rippled in pain and remembrance.

Because as her eyes traced the outline of the face she knew so well, she saw a beautiful woman reach up on her tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek.

And so she ran.

She knew they had broken up, but it had never occurred to her that he might date someone. She thought he would be just as heartbroken as she was and just as eager to fix whatever had gone wrong with them. But apparently, he was already over her.

The tears glistened in her eyes, and she strode out of that bookstore, tripping over herself in her rush. His face flashed in the quiet haven of darkness, secluded behind her eyelids, and she anxiously tried to expel the sight of his eyes. But she couldn't escape it. It was too much a part of her.

She left, because without him, she was nothing. And nothing was a feeling she knew only too well. She had to escape the gray before it consumed her.

But just as she thought she would never be happy again, she met someone, too.

His name was Julian Baker, and he was everything Lucas wasn't. And somehow, that was enough for her. She fell, and she fell hard, and when she lay awake at night, entwined in his arms, face pressed against his chest, she thought that maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right. She would be with Julian, and he would hold her when she cried and make love to her until she could barely breathe.

And somehow, they'd be okay.

But all that fell apart when he discovered that she kept a copy of Lucas' book in her purse. She hardly read it, but she kept it, and that was enough for him.

"You're still in love with him," It was a quiet statement. The subject needed no introduction; she knew what he was talking about.

"I'm not," she countered defensively, her walls up before he could catch his breath. If he were really going to prod at the one wound that had never healed, he would have to suffer the consequences.

But he just left, and she understood why.

She bought every copy of Lucas' book she saw, because he had written it about her, and his words were water to a parched throat. They were her solace in her darkest hour.

But they were also excruciatingly painful. Because he had written that he would love her forever, and then he had left her. The contradiction often tugged at the elusive feeling in her heart, the feeling that something was missing. She refused to acknowledge it, of course. But every time she read his book, especially the last paragraph, tears welled in her eyes, and she cried for the boy she had loved so long ago.

And then she had to remind herself of the mantra she had once believed in above all else.

People always leave.

So she didn't stop Julian from leaving. Because that's what people did. They left.

But as the lights of LA faded and the appeal of the huge city grew less and less prominent, she realized that she missed home.

And so she boarded a plane to Tree Hill, because she didn't want to be one of those people who always left. She wanted to be the exception. She wanted to be the person that came back.

_That I love you, I have loved you all along  
And I miss you, been far away for far too long  
I keep dreaming you'll be with me and you'll never go  
Stop breathing if I don't see you anymore_

He almost thought he was dreaming when he saw her on the Rivercourt, blond curls whipping across her face, arms crossed, eyes averted. He couldn't contain the smile that flicked across his face.

She was back.

He approached her hesitantly, rubbing the back of his neck, sighing. Something akin to pain flamed in his throat, and he couldn't look at her. It simply hurt too much.

Her voice reached his ears after a long moment, and he closed his eyes, savoring the silky sounds and lilting notes. She had a beautiful voice, so sweet and rough and tangled all at once. A voice just as complicated as she was.

Her words washed over him, lulling him into a sense of keen longing. He had missed her.

"Luke," she whispered, wringing her hands in despair, "I missed you."

She closed the distance between them, reaching out to him, her hands shaking. "I didn't mean to…"

But her voice trailed off, and he stepped away from her, his jaw clenching. It was an automatic reaction. Because around her, he simply couldn't trust himself. He would fall for her if she so much as brushed his cheek with her hand. Already, a cloud of green and yellow had settled over his eyes, a haze slipping through his mind. Eyes, hair. All of her contained in a blur, crossing the line between nothing and too much.

And so he didn't look at her. He didn't smile, didn't pull her into his arms. He hung his head. And he pushed her away, with words he wished he didn't have the right to say.

"I have someone."

He couldn't look at her after he spoke the words, couldn't raise his eyes to meet hers. He couldn't imagine the emotion in her eyes, the falter and break. He had never meant to cause her pain. It had just happened.

The painted lines of the court blurred and mingled as his eyes unfocused, and he let out a shaky breath. So much had changed between them, and yet she still made his pulse race. The intoxicating smell of her, so distinct, so fresh, wafted under his nose, and he resisted the urge to bury his head in her mass of curls.

He could hear the tears in her voice when she next spoke. "Oh."

And then she left, because to see him and not be able to hold him was too much for her to bear.

She cried in her best friend's arms that night, tears leaking out of her haunted eyes. Sobs racked her body, and she fought them, because she had never intended to cry for him. He had hurt her, yes. But she was strong. She could survive without him.

The words of her friend did little to stitch the gaping hole in her heart. "Listen, Peyton. I've been between you and Lucas, and it's not a good place to be. He'll come to his senses."

But he didn't.

_On my knees, I'll ask  
Last chance for one last dance  
'Cause with you, I'd withstand  
All of hell to hold your hand_

The days went by, and they said nothing. To each other, to the world. Silence was easier, she thought. Easier than almost anything else.

She saw him a lot. Too much, in fact. She wondered if anyone noticed the fervent glances that passed between them, the almost involuntary grimaces when they caught each other's eyes. She wondered if anyone really knew how hard this was for them. For her. For him. For them.

They were one and the same. Lucas. Peyton.

And yet…he would not leave Lindsay.

As the moon clouded the sky one night, as bitterness and anger evaporated until only tenderness remained, he sought her out, because he needed to know why she had said no all those years ago. He needed to know why he had never been enough for her.

He found her in her studio, and she whispered, as if she could feel his presence somehow, "I didn't say no."

There was no strength in her voice. It was not reminiscent of who she used to be. She had lost so much without him. She had lost herself.

And he could not stand it.

"You gave up on me," he countered, his sorrow at her obvious loneliness twisting into rage and disbelief. "You didn't think I could publish my book, and so you left me."

She tilted her head in surprise, tears glinting in the soft depths of her emerald eyes. He tried in vain to quell the wrenching in his heart, but he found that as his gaze met hers, the loss he had tried so hard to banish only resurfaced.

She brought her hand to her cheek, wiping the tears away, and casually brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, whispering, "I believed in you. I did."

He shook his head vehemently, needing to believe that she had left him because she didn't think he could achieve everything he had ever worked for. That was the easy answer, the safe answer. And the answer that only existed in fantasy.

"But you gave up on us."

A sigh escaped her mouth and fell to the floor, as if it had no purpose, just as she had no purpose. There was so much she needed to say him, so much she needed to explain. But she couldn't. He had hurt her too badly. She could only tell him that he had been the one to ruin things between them.

His indignant yell screeched in her ears, and she lifted her head in utter shock.

"I didn't give up on us!" His breath collided with his words, and the emptiness of rage seeped through him with a cold that surprised him. He found himself continuing, accusing, prodding. He knew he shouldn't be like this. Not when she was so distraught. But she had hurt him, and he needed her to understand just how badly he had needed her when she left him. Just how badly he _still_ needed her.

"_You_ gave up on us!" He argued, hoping to incite some kind of reaction in her still form.

But she didn't respond. Instead, she strode over to the bookshelves nestled against the wall and lifted a stack into her arms, hurling a copy of his book at him in blinding anger.

"Really, Lucas?" she countered, flinging another book at him. "Then why do I buy this book every time I see it, huh? Every _goddamn_ time, I buy it. Why, Lucas?"

She glared at him, waiting, watching.

He raised his hands in self-defense, bewildered by this sudden flare of anger, and whispered warningly, "Peyton…"

But she only covered her hand with her mouth and sobbed, trembling slightly, "Just go."

He wanted to hold her. The need to breathe her in flooded his senses, and he closed his eyes, walking out without as much as a glance in her direction. He couldn't look at her. Because he still loved her.

And that was dangerous.

_I'd give it all, I'd give for us  
Give anything but I won't give up  
'Cause you know  
You know, you know_

He came to her the next day, shaking with rage. "What do you want from me?"

She looked up at him in surprise, her hands trembling. He had never been this angry, this…was there even a word for the pain reflected in the normally serene depths of his eyes?

No, there wasn't. Just as there wasn't a name for what they had become. They weren't friends, nor lovers, nor partners. They were just…Lucas and Peyton.

She shook her head disbelievingly, standing up, reaching out to him with one hand.

But he flinched, groaning angrily, "I fly to LA, I propose, and you say no, so I moved on. Why haven't you?"

He waited, waited for her to answer, waited for her to free him from the chains of her love. He wanted her to let go of him, because to have her hold on was too much for him to bear. He couldn't be with her. She was too fragile, too perfect. He would only hurt her again.

But she merely whispered, consumed by the need to hold him, "Because I should have said yes."

He had no words, no answers. He had never expected those words to slip from her mouth. They were so foreign, so unimaginable. He had long ago accepted that she hadn't wanted to marry him. The idea that she regretted the decision she had made that day was just too fantastical. And, perhaps, too beautiful.

But as he shook his head, she continued, "I was young, and I was scared, and I did not realize that by saying I wasn't ready to marry you that I would lose you. Had I know that, I _would_ have said yes."

He could only whisper, "Peyton…"

"No!" she exclaimed, tilting her head slightly. "God, Luke, I miss you every day! And I know I told everyone that I didn't come back for you, but I did, of _course_ I did."

She gazed into his eyes, indecision flickering across her face, before whispering, a tear trembling on her eyelid, "I still love you, Lucas."

The room spun around him for one moment, and he wondered idly how he was supposed to save himself now. The knowledge that she loved him could not help him, could not bring him anything but problems. He was in a relationship with another woman. He could not still harbor any sort of amorous feelings for the girl – no, woman now, he corrected himself – in front of him.

And yet, it did not surprise him in the least that he did.

She stroked his cheek tenderly and smiled a little, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off her chest. Color burned in her cheeks, but she leaned towards him and brought her lips to his for one bittersweet moment, her touch as sweet and familiar as it had been all those years ago. And he wanted to resist, he did, but when he pulled away, shaking his head as he did, because to be with her was wrong on so many levels…when his lips left hers, her eyes pleaded with him to kiss her back. And suddenly, he couldn't find the strength to resist her – if he had ever had it.

And so he kissed her, and the distance between them suddenly fled, and all that remained was a whisper of everything they had been through together.

Her eyes still closed, she whispered against his lips, "You still love me, don't you?"

He fought the urge to nod, instead murmuring regretfully, "I have to go see Lindsey." And he extracted himself from the welcoming hold of her arms and walked away, because she wasn't his to kiss, not anymore.

It shouldn't have surprised her, really, when she knocked on his door a few hours later and a joyous, crying Lindsey opened the door and held up her hand. It was then that Peyton saw the ring on her finger. The diamond ring that Lucas had proposed to _her_ with that day in the hotel room.

And when she caught his eye, he only stared at her stoically and shook his head. And so she ran.

She couldn't face him just yet.

_That I love you, I have loved you all along  
And I miss you, been far away for far too long  
I keep dreaming you'll be with me and you'll never go  
Stop breathing if I don't see you anymore_

She confronted him the next day, of course. She yelled at him for kissing her, told him, with tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice, that if he had wanted to break her heart there were a thousand ways he could have done it. He did not have to propose to Lindsey to hurt her.

But he only pushed her away, his words further widening the distance between them. "I'm in love with her, Peyton."

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to smile, but when that failed, she simply left. Because the Lucas she had loved in high school was so far away now that she couldn't bear to look at the person he had become.

She found him in the gym an hour or so later, and she walked towards him, eyes closed, arms crossed, a nervous smile gracing her face. She approached him casually, trying to conceal the sorrow in her eyes, and whispered, "I just want us to go back to the way we used to be."

He shook his head, because that was in the past and they both knew it. Too much had changed. Too many mistakes had been made.

She searched his face for any sign of indecision – because if he was the least bit hesitant about marrying Lindsey, there was no way she would be able to say what she had come to say – before continuing, "I was reminded in a roundabout way today that the greatest act of love is sacrifice. It's what Keith did for Karen, burying his feelings for her for all those years so he could be a good friend."

She reached out to him, gripping his hands in hers. "I love you, Lucas." There were tears in her eyes, but she fought them, because she had to get this out. "And I think I have since the first moment we locked eyes."

She covered her hand with her mouth, stifling a strangled sob. "And it's gonna suck!"

She let out a harsh laugh but continued, "But if what you want is for me to let go, then I'm going to do it."

He began to shake his head, but she hurriedly whispered, "Be happy, Luke. I want that with all my heart."

And then she was gone.

_So far away, been far away for far too long  
So far away, been far away for far too long  
But you know  
You know, you know_

She kept her promise, but it was hard. It was hard to see Brooke immerse herself in designs for Lindsey's wedding dress, hard to hear Haley complain daily about everything that had to be done in preparation for the fairytale wedding. It was hard to be stuck in that library with the bitch herself, hard to hear her friends marvel at the ring in place on her finger. It was hard to see Lucas every day, hard to watch him wrap his arms around Lindsey and kiss her as if the gesture took no effort at all.

And it only got harder.

She thought the wedding itself was the hardest (it would get harder, of course, but she had no way of knowing that). Brooke told her that maybe she shouldn't go at all, but she argued that she didn't want Lucas to think that he had that much power over her. Even though he did.

The night before the wedding, she had a dream that she stood up in front of the entire wedding congregation and exclaimed that Lucas could not marry Lindsey. But in reality, she watched in silence as Lucas and Lindsey prepared to exchange vows. She closed her eyes when he said the words that would bind him to a woman that was not her, squeezed Brooke's hand unmercifully when the priest prepared to take Lindsay's vows.

She was shocked when Lindsey did not say, "I do." She could not believe that Lindsey told Lucas, with tears in her navy blue eyes, that she could not marry him because his new novel told her that he was still in love with Peyton. And she had to blink to check if she was seeing things when Lindsey slid her engagement ring off her finger and walked quickly down the aisle, throwing a meaningful glance at Peyton.

But the fact remained that Lucas had agreed to marry Lindsey, and so Peyton continued to concentrate on the overwhelmingly difficult task of letting go.

She apologized to him repeatedly for days after the wedding-that-hadn't-been, blaming herself for Lindsey's sudden departure, arguing that she had gotten in the way of their relationship. But he only shook his head and smiled easily, saying with a confidence that surprised and saddened her, "Don't worry about it, Peyt. She'll come back. I know she will."

But Peyton knew she wouldn't, and she couldn't bear for Lucas to be so hopeful when that hope was completely unwarranted. And although she knew it might kill her, she resolved to go visit Lindsey in New York and tell her that she should go back to Lucas.

All she wanted was Lucas' happiness. It would come at a price, but he was the most important thing in the world to her. She would walk through fire for him.

And so she did.

_I wanted  
I wanted you to stay_

She arrived in Lindsey's office a few weeks after the wedding and said upfront, "Come back to him, Lindsey. Please."

Lindsey shook her head, averting her eyes, and asked, "Have you read his book yet?"

"No," Peyton said in confusion, "But what does that matter? Whatever he wrote isn't important. Those are just words! What he _says_ means so much more. And he said, 'I do.' What more do you want?"

Lindsey shook her head in amusement. "Read the book," she ordered, turning around in her chair so Peyton wouldn't see the tears welling up in her eyes, "And then we'll talk."

Peyton shook her head angrily and left Lindsey's office, muttering under her breath, "What a bitch."

Lindsay smiled to herself.

Peyton bought the book, because despite herself, she was curious about what Lucas had written. She should have known it was a bad idea. She should have known that any book that stopped Lindsey from marrying Lucas was not a book that she, Peyton, should read. But read it she did.

And it got harder. Because now, she knew that Lucas still loved her. She knew she had changed his life – the so-called "comet" was a laughably obvious metaphor for her car and, subsequently, herself. And she knew that all he was doing now was denying his feelings.

But she still tried to let go, because he deserved the chance to figure out for himself who he wanted.

She found him at Tric, drowning his sorrows in alcohol, not long after her trip to New York. She sighed heavily and dragged him to his house, sagging with the weight of his vodka-laden body and the burden of all her problems. She gently stripped him of his shirt and jeans and tucked him into bed, brushing her lips across his cheek and whispering sadly, "Oh, Luke. I never meant for this to happen."

It was then, as she stood up and creaked open his door, that she heard a very sober Lucas say bitterly, "I hate you. I wish you never came back."

She cried herself to sleep that night, and the next morning, she stood on a rooftop and threw balloons at the cars passing by.

'_Cause I needed  
I need to hear you say_

She wasn't surprised when he showed up at her studio that afternoon.

"I don't hate you," he murmured, and she lifted her eyes to meet his. "I just…don't know what to say to you anymore."

She nodded in understanding and waited for him to continue.

"It was hard letting you go, Peyton," he said ruefully, folding and unfolding his hands. "It was hard seeing you again, and it was hard talking to you. It's…still hard."

"I know," she whispered. "I know, Luke."

And then he left, and she immediately drove to the Rivercourt, because she was done letting go. She had tried that, but it hadn't worked. There was really no point in pretending she wasn't still in love with him.

And so she painted the lyrics to "Lovesong" by the Cure on the grey court, and she painted a comet blazing through the words, and she signed her name. And then she ran.

_I love you, I have loved you all along  
And I forgive you for being away for far too long  
So keep breathing, 'cause I'm not leaving you anymore  
Believe it, hold onto me, never let me go_

She didn't know whether to be surprised when he called her a few hours later. But the sound of his gravelly voice was more than enough incentive for her to drive to the airport, his words echoing in her mind.

"I've got two tickets to Vegas. Want to get married tonight?"

Oh, did she ever!

But she was more than a little nervous when she arrived at the airport.

She saw him across the crowded terminal, saw his closely cropped golden locks and his intense blue eyes. And she sighed. Because as she walked towards him, as she closed the distance between them, she wondered if this one last phone call could possibly erase all the pain she had felt on his account over the past year. She wondered if they could ever move past all the hurtful words they had thrown at each other. She wondered if it was even worth it.

But when she reached him, when she could only nod slightly, trembling at his proximity, she breathed in the air he breathed at her and gazed into the blazing liquid of his eyes.

And without a second thought, she leapt into his arms.

_Keep breathing, 'cause I'm not leaving you anymore  
Believe it, hold onto me, never let me go  
Hold onto me, never let me go  
Hold onto me, never let me go_

_fin_


End file.
